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"Cotton Mather (February 12, 1663
- February 13, 1728). A.B.
1678 (Harvard College), A.M. 1681; honorary doctorate 1710 (University of
Glasgow), was a socially and politically influential Puritan minister,
prolific author, and pamphleteer. Cotton Mather was the son of influential
minister Increase Mather. He is often remembered for his persecution of
alleged witches. Background
Mather was named after his grandfather,
John
Cotton. He attended Boston
Latin School, and graduated from Harvard in 1678, at only 15 years of
age. After completing his post-graduate work, he joined his father as
assistant Pastor of Boston's original North Church (not to be confused with
the Anglican/Episcopal Old North
Church). It was not until his father's death, in 1723 that Mather
assumed full responsibilities as Pastor at the Church. Author of more than
450 books and pamphlets, Cotton Mather's ubiquitous literary works made him
one of the most influential religious leaders in America. Mather set the
nation's "moral tone," and sounded the call for second and third generation
Puritans, whose parents had left England for the New England colonies of
North America to return to the theological roots of Puritanism.
The most important of these, Magnalia Christi Americana (1702) is
composed of 7 distinct books, many of which depict biographical and
historical narratives which later American writers such as Nathaniel
Hawthorne, Elizabeth Drew Stoddard, and Harriet Beecher Stowe would look to
in describing the cultural significance of New England for later generations
following the American Revolution. Mather's text thus was one of the more
important documents in American history because it reflects a particular
tradition of seeing and understanding the significance of place. Mather, as
a Puritan thinker and social conservative, drew on the figurative language
of the Bible to speak to present-day audiences. In particular, Mather's
review of the American experiment sought to explain signs of his time and
the types of individuals drawn to the colonies as predicting the success of
the venture. From his religious training, Mather viewed the importance of
texts for elaborating meaning and for bridging different moments of history
(for instance, linking the biblical stories of Noah and Abraham with the
arrival of eminent leaders such as John Eliot, John Winthrop, and his own
father Increase Mather).
The struggles of first, second and third-generation Puritans, both
intellectual and physical, thus became elevated in the American way of
thinking about its appointed place among other nations. The unease and
self-deception that characterized that period of colonial history would be
revisited in many forms at political and social moments of crisis (such as
the Salem witch trials which coincided with frontier warfare and economic
competition among Indians, French and other European settlers) and during
lengthy periods of cultural definition (e.g., the American Renaissance of
the late 18th and early 19th century literary, visual, and architectural
movements which sought to capitalize on unique American identities).
A friend of a number of the judges charged with hearing the Salem witch
trials, Mather on numerous occasions warned against ignoring "spectral
evidence," (compare "The Devil in New England") though he accepted that it
should not be heard in court, only as evidence needed to begin
investigations. Writing of the trials later, Mather stated:
"If in the midst of the many Dissatisfactions among us, the publication
of these Trials may promote such a pious Thankfulness unto God, for Justice
being so far executed among us, I shall Re-joyce that God is Glorified..."
(Wonders of the Invisible World).
Highly influential due to his prolific writing, Mather was a force to be
reckoned with in secular, as well as in spiritual, matters. After the fall
of James II of England in 1688, Mather was among the leaders of a successful
revolt against James's Governor of the consolidated Dominion of New England,
Sir Edmund Andros.
Mather was influential in early American science as well. In 1716, as the
result of observations of corn varieties, he conducted one of the first
experiments with plant hybridization. This observation was memorialized in a
letter to a friend:
"My friend planted a row of Indian corn that was colored red and blue;
the rest of the field being planted with yellow, which is the most usual
color. To the windward side this red and blue so infected three or four rows
as to communicate the same color unto them; and part of ye fifth and some of
ye sixth. But to the leeward side, no less than seven or eight rows had ye
same color communicated unto them; and some small impressions were made on
those that were yet further off."
Of Mather's three wives and fifteen children, only his last wife and two
children survived him. Mather was buried on Copp's Hill.
Smallpox Inoculation
A smallpox epidemic struck Boston in May 1721 and continued through the
year.
The practice of inoculation had been known since 1706. A slave, Onesimus,
had explained to Mather how he had been inoculated as a child in Africa. The
practice was an ancient one, and Mather was fascinated by the idea. He
encouraged physicians to try it, without success. Then, at Mather's urging,
one doctor, Zabdiel Boylston,
tried the procedure on his only son and two slaves?one grown and one a boy.
All recovered in about a week.
In a bitter controversy, the New England Courant published writers who
opposed inoculation. The stated reason for this editorial stance was that
the Boston populace feared that inoculation spread, rather than prevented,
the disease; however, some historians, notably H. W. Brands, have argued
that this position was a result of editor-in-chief James Franklin's
(Benjamin Franklin's brother) contrarian positions. Boylston and Mather
encountered such bitter hostility, that the selectmen of the city forbade
him to repeat the experiment.
The opposition insisted that inoculation was poisoning, and they urged
the authorities to try Boylston for murder. So bitter was this opposition
that Boylston's life was in danger; it was considered unsafe for him to be
out of his house in the evening; a lighted grenade was even thrown into the
house of Mather, who had favored the new practice and had sheltered another
clergyman who had submitted himself to it.
After overcoming considerable difficulty and achieving notable success,
Boylston traveled to London in 1724, published his results, and was elected
to the Royal Society in 1726."
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